Lujo wrote:^ I've been harping on Sorcerors all the time, they're bloody strong. Goblin sorcerors especially, since they have a cheap way to refill the bigass mana pool, and they don't LOOK that strong because you trust a class ability to be balanced somewhat so the +5 mana kinda slips past the cheeze radar.

I've always loved Sorcerers for their early power; they're one of the few classes who can stand up to higher level monsters in a Vicious Token run with only a small boost to their HP. Sure, some of that power fades away later, but that 5 MP is definitely something you can build on to do amazing/ridiculous things.

It's funny, every time I go to say something like "the sorcerer is my favourite class", I end up thinking "but wait, those other classes are so awesome, too!". Which I feel is a better testament to class balance than anything

Blovski wrote:Hm, interested to see whether the extra 30ish XP from a goblin makes up for the eighty quasijillion mana potions of gnomes. Never really tried it.

I'd say that the Goblin's strength increases proportionally to the relative power of the monsters vs. the player... the most obvious example of that being the Vicious Token runs, where most classes, even fully prepped, can struggle at first unless they get a good draw. A Gnome might be better than a Goblin in a fully prepped regular Vicious run, but in purist vicious or VT runs, the experience makes up for the resources lost (whether blackspace, gold, piety, etc.) due to low early strength. In my above VT example my Wizard ran out of exploration around levels 4-5... and no matter how important XP conservation for level cannons actually is, you can't forget that your power level matters too (something which playing the Monk more has reminded me). Obviously I wasn't a Goblin, but a Tikki worshipper with boosted attack and monster zoo subdungeon can practically simulate being a Goblin XD. Also, it may be stating the obvious, but 30 bonus XP is more valuable if you get it at lower levels (in terms of the level XP thresholds).

Just popped in to say how much I love the orc punchomancer too. If you throw into the mix a Roch Heart as well and lucky enough to find B2P you can cast an extreme amount of PISORFs. Come to think of it Rock Heart doubles B2P's effectivity: instead of paying 3 tiles of health to 3 mana, you pay only 2 and recieve 4! Then there's also Binlor whom you can use to lengthen the combo by taking that Stone Skin boon. This nice little strategy helped me kill Namtar 1 and almost 2 without touching him or ding.

The goblin sorcerer shines in Vicious token runs in particular because he's more flexible with his leveling, and the refills you get from his CP pops also increase your spell damage while you're fighting instead of getting it after you finish a fight. Many other guys have to settle for a lower feasible level cap than a goblin when mopping everything up isn't an option, and as far as I remember, all of this shows. It's a more bursty archetype, and probably not the best for naga city or VGT but it still was my weapon of choice for the majority of the VT runs in the game.

Every xp gain feature is more valuable in a VT run because it lets you work around the problem of having to fight high level monsters with boosted stats. Goblin, balanced dagger, Yendor, glenrick, Learning, Entanglement...

Another +1 for the orc wizard's versatility too. I think it's the most fun of the 3 mage classes. Not only do you get a strong Pisorf, you also get to have all the utility glyphs available at all times, which leads to more interesting tactics.

TheSchachter wrote:Also, it may be stating the obvious, but 30 bonus XP is more valuable if you get it at lower levels (in terms of the level XP thresholds).

It is something that I have always wondered. On the one end, early big bonus XP enables you to save popcorn and blackspace. But the other hand it also wastes many opportunities to get Bonus XP (monsters which could have provided bonus XP, suddenly turn into popcorn).

So, I don't know what is best. With goblins, I usually tend to convert when I already am at high level (though, also I won a few gold challenges and killed Horacio, I have never ventured into vicious dungeons yet)

It depends on the situation. Setting up a cheap "popcornless" mid fight level up is something only they can really do, and this comes in handy in VT runs since cleaning up stuff that would otherwise be popcorn is a bit of a pain when all your low level stuff is actually fat. It can also conserve blackspace for B2P - no need to find the popcorn that way, or fight it.

TheSchachter wrote:Also, it may be stating the obvious, but 30 bonus XP is more valuable if you get it at lower levels (in terms of the level XP thresholds).

It is something that I have always wondered. On the one end, early big bonus XP enables you to save popcorn and blackspace. But the other hand it also wastes many opportunities to get Bonus XP (monsters which could have provided bonus XP, suddenly turn into popcorn).

I wasn't exactly clear there, I'm not advocating using Goblin XP to level up at low levels (unless it's the only thing that can score you a ridiculous kill through ding-power). I'm thinking more of boss-spiking at low levels, especially when you run out of other resources (notably blackspace) early. It's not uncommon to run into that kind of scenario in vicious token runs, like my above example where I was facing a vicious Super Meat Man and the Berzerker boss while nearly out of blackspace at levels 4-5. Basically, it seems to me as though that flat XP bonus is more likely to carry you through more XP thresholds, and thus more dings, if you have to start low in the first place. (in my example I wasn't a Goblin, but two shots of Tikki's edge comes close to that )

Actually as I write this I realize I'm basically repeating what Kestrel and Lujo are saying in a more obtuse way...

I prepped Earthmother. With Earthmother you have to restart if you get a terrible glyph draw, but that's rare; usually a lack of PISORF can be compensated for by physical combat glyphs like CYDSTEPP. In VT runs I'm generally not going to kill all the high level enemies unless I'm playing an assassin, so IMAWAL generates piety very quickly. This piety went to a total of 7 levels of Corrosion, 1 level of Vine Form, and entanglement as necessary.

on the successful run I didn't find CYDSTEPP or GETINDARE, but I did get PISORF / BYSSEPS / HALPMEH / WEYTWUT. notable shop items (preparing Elites) were Elven Boots and Orb of Zot. Thanks to Earthmother I was able to get +1 level kills with XP bonus, and start killing the demons at level 5 by PISORFing the magic resistant one down a long line of walls with one Clearance. To my annoyance I misclicked on Zot (was intending to use it to regen fight the avatar) after killing the second demon, which was totally unnecessary, and then further messed up by allowing myself to be cut off from the exit on the boss level, and blocking my altar access while fighting Avatar and stripping his resistance with BYSSEPS. This was very silly since I could just have pushed Avatar next to the stairs and avoided all this trouble.

I didn't use any potions at all on the demons, though, which saved the run. I took a last minute Alchemist pact which gave me a post-10 level up for the avatar, and just slowly wore him down, using a schadenfreude potion and HALPMEH for healing at the beginning, then using Quicksilver/Reflex and a chain of PISORFs to finish the fight off after the enrage.

Anyway I was surprised that dealing with a 1900 hp 120 damage enrage boss with only 33% resist wasn't as bad as I thought.

NAMTAR'S LAIR

For this dungeon I prepped Binlor and explored about 2/3 of the map at level one. Shop items were elven boots, fine sword and balanced dagger (nice), and the other two altars were EM and JJ. So, after I'd gotten the boons I wanted from Binlor and 50% magic resist I converted off to EM so I could use a few entanglements. I levelled with balanced dagger, and was able to fight the first two forms of Namtar at level 7-8 and 8-9 with PISORF and melee, using Whupaz on the second form. I finally ran out of popcorn to remove curses after levelling up to 9, but EM's Greenblood curse removal turned out to be handy. I cashed the rest of my Plantation piety in for a few levels of vine form to cancel out the corrosion, and headed downstairs.

I was actually a bit worried about downstairs, since I only had 18% physical resist from dragonshield, but I had ENDISWAL so was able to set the fight up to push Namtar up the side walls for the damage bonuses, and the Wizard really has no trouble with any particular set of abilities since it's so versatile. Just a matter of using the right potions at the right times.

I've had it completed for a while, but I finished it back during the phase of beta where GETINDARE granted dodge prediction, so the win has always had an asterisk in my mind. (I probably used the powerful iteration of the Trisword, too.) I took a Dwarf Rogue, prepped Mystera/Dragon Soul and found both CYDSTEPP and BYCEPPS, which is nice. Shops were just OK, providing a Soul Orb, Whrbargl, and conversion fodder. Pactmaker came along early enough for Body Pact to get pretty high, but the large empty level with lots of blackspace took a while and I was getting pretty worried. (If that one got the full-reveal penalty it might have been game over.) I converted to Drac after the seventh level or so, eventually taking 3 levels of Sanguine but no lifesteal, since the max resistance penalty would have been crippling. A Tower Shield brought me up to 65% physical resistance (first time I've purchased that in quite a while) and BYCEPPS to remove H's resistances let me take him down without too much trouble. I still had a couple of health potions and piety for bloodswells (and popcorn to clear curses) had I needed them.